Take control of your pension

You have power as a pension plan member. Wherever you are on your pension journey, you should review your investments regularly to make sure you’re on track for the retirement you want. We’ve put together some things to consider when reviewing and choosing your pension investments.

As a member of a pension plan, you’re investing money to save for your future retirement. Your pension plan is a long-term investment. You and your employer pay in money throughout your working life to support your future retirement plans. Payments from your salary into your pension are automatically set up by your employer. But did you know you can make personal choices within your pension plan? Learn more in our video:

Your pension plan is different to a bank account or savings account. The money saved doesn't always stay as cash. Investing is the process of buying assets with the hope of earning a profit in the future. Your pension plan invests the money you save to help grow your pension savings over time.

When you start paying into your pension, your money is invested into a ‘default’ fund – unless you choose your own. Depending on the type of pension you're in, your default scheme will either be selected by the trustees, your pension provider, or your employer. Occasionally, it will be a combination of the three. So you don’t have to decide where to invest your money.

You might feel comfortable managing your own investments. You might want to move your money into lower or higher risk funds, or would prefer to invest in ethical funds or those that are ESG focused.

If you’d like to make your own investment choices, make sure you have the time and knowledge to manage your investments. It’s important to remember, the value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you paid in. We’d recommend seeking financial advice before you make any changes. And you should regularly review your investments to make sure you're happy with them.

The process of changing your pension investments may be different for each plan. Log in to your online account and click on the 'Investments' tab. You’ll have two options to choose from:

Browse available funds

This lets you review all the funds available to you. Use the search field to find a fund, or filter by fund type, fund management change or management company. Each of the fund names is clickable and will take you to the ‘Fund details’ page. If you decide to switch, continue to the section called ‘Complete a transaction'. 

Change allocations

In this section of your online account you can change the funds you're currently contributing to and the funds your future contributions will be invested into. Choose between:

• Current investments and future contributions: This is where you'll be able to see the funds you're invested in, any new funds you have added and change the how much of your pension contributions are allocated to each fund.
• Future regular contributions only: This is where you can change where your future pension contributions are invested. You can change how much of your pension contributions are allocated to each fund here too.

Before you continue with your selection in your online account, you also have the option to browse available funds or add more funds by clicking ‘Add a new fund’. Frequent changing between funds can incur transaction costs though, which can affect the value of your savings. For more information, read our 'Guide to transaction costs.' You can also manage your funds through your L&G app.

• Each type of investment has its own features including risk, performance and charges. We explain what these mean under the ‘Things to consider when reviewing your funds’ section.  
• Your pension plan offers you a choice of investment options. Each has a different mix of these types of investments. For example, you may have the option to invest in a fund combining stocks and shares or bonds, or a fund which has more in cash.
• Past performance doesn't mean future results will be the same. Markets can be unpredictable, and periods of uncertainty can lead to the value of your savings going down as well as up.